


Red to Black

by AcidicPrince



Series: Words [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Parent Tony Stark, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, but not really?, well kinda...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2019-01-03 18:37:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12152457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AcidicPrince/pseuds/AcidicPrince
Summary: Everyone has words.Words of love from friends, family and lovers, in red and gold shimmering font.A declaration of love can range from the simple "I love you", to a ramble of nonsense depending on the person and how they express their feelings differently.And everyone has them.Or Tony Stark has a tough life and is the first person in history to have white words.





	Red to Black

**Based off of["Red"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8246320/chapters/18897088) by Sophelia, **

**and["All the Ways to Say"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10599396) by Camichats**

 

 

Everyone has words.

At least one set, gold or red.

Gold for platonic love, red for romantic love.

The majority of people's first words are gold, from their family. Many are immediately gifted with them the moment they're born, their mothers murmur sweet words about her child's beauty and they're given those words permanently. They itch and burn as they wrap themselves into a person's skin, and they set in a shimmering ink that stays with someone their whole life.

Everyone has as least one set of words.

Everyone, but Anthony Stark.

Tony Stark, a man with the most popular parents of their time, was without a family. With a father who was absent eleven months out of twelve and a mother who ignored his very existence, he was, in the end, alone. Of course, one could argue he had his faithful butler, Jarvis, and his kick ass aunt, Peggy, to look after him, though he never gained their words and therefore he knew they didn't genuinely love him.

However, they did have _his_ words.

He loved and loved and loved, but never got a single set of scrawling gold or burning red and it ate at him. Of course it did, it would eat away at anyone to know they were truly, utterly unloved by even their own family. At fifteen, when Tony began attending MIT, he met Rhodey, the definition of a Gryffindor. He was brave, and willing to stand up for Tony, and he was loved. Along his upper arms, over his shoulders and collar bones he was completely covered in gold. One day Tony asked Rhodey if he had any red words. Without answering he had pulled down the waistband of his pants slightly to reveal the red burst of color along his left hip. It read _Goodbye_ in slight, neat handwriting, and if that didn't just break Tony's heart then nothing ever would.

Once Rhodey had rolled his shirt back down and adjusted his pants he gestured at Tony with one hand and asked, "How about you? You've seen my words plenty of times, it's only fair I see yours."

Tony spluttered and shook his head, not knowing how to tell his best friend the secret that had been destroying him since he was born. Thankfully, he was saved by their friend Ty, who burst into their dorm room unannounced, screamed about a pop quiz in biomechanical engineering and yanked Tony out of the room.

That night though Rhodey brought it up again.

"What are they?" He asked innocently.

Tony shrugged, trying to act nonchalant even though his face and chest burned as a coil of shame twisted in his gut.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"James, I just- I don't want to talk about it." He answered simply.

Rhodey's brow furrowed, Tony only called him that when something was very off, and Tony could see him move in the corner of his eye as he pretended to study his drafting book. "We were just talking about mine earlier. C'mon man, it's not that big of a deal."

He got up from his bed and moved closer to Tony who was still staring intently at the text in front of him. He placed a hand on the younger boy's shoulder and it comforted him the slightest bit, that is, until Rhodes continued.

"It's okay, everyone has them."

_Everyone has them._

Tony swallowed sharply, a bitter taste exploding in his mouth as he bit down on his tongue and blinked back tears. It didn't work.

Fat, salty drops fell from his eyes onto his notes, making the pen's ink smear and run. He sniffled grossly and rubbed at his eyes, feeling like a baby who didn't know how to move his limbs. He started shaking, his whole body burning, he couldn't even see now that his eyes were glossed over and his hair fell in front of his face. He could feel Rhodey tense behind him, not knowing how to react to the sudden outburst. The hand on his shoulder tightened as his friend pulled him into an awkward embrace around his desk chair.

After a few moments of trying to compose himself, Tony drew in a long, jagged breath and grit out, _"_ _Not everyone."_

 

\---

 

Rhodey was the first person to find out he had no words, and while it didn't make the man like him any less, it also didn't make him like Tony any more. Within the first week of meeting Tony had given James his words. A scribble of gold in architectural lettering that read _Thanks for letting me borrow your notes, Honey Bear_.

Around twenty years later Tony still hadn't gotten Rhodey's words, or anyone else's. He realized a few days after revealing his secret to Rhodes that maybe he was Tony's best friend, but Tony wasn't his. He realized that a lot of people were like this too. A lot of relationships are one sided or unbalanced, and at age thirty five Tony had come to accept this.

He had come to terms with the fact that maybe he would just never be loved, platonic or other. No one but Rhodey had known up until then. He could've gone to doctors and had tests run to see if there was something wrong with his skin or just something physical that was blocking his words but he knew that if it got out that Tony Stark had no words the media, the world, would go insane. And if he found out nothing was wrong with him it would break him all over again. So he decided to keep it to himself. Until Obadiah Stane of course.

After his display of the Jericho missile, after being shot full of shrapnel, the surgeon in Afghanistan, Yinsen, had to remove his clothing to inspect his injuries and in the middle of the surgery it suddenly clicked as to why Tony Stark looked so strange.

He didn't have any words.

Yinsen chose not to share this observation with their captors and instead had him dressed as soon as possible so that no one else would notice the lack of gold and red.

When Stark awoke with a violent gasp and a harsh tug at his makeshift life support system Yinsen watched him closely. He asked if the famous billionaire had a family to go home to and when all he got was a quick glance and shrug he murmured faintly, "So you're a man who has everything, and nothing."

 

\---

 

Those words had stuck to Tony. Latched onto him and dug deeply into his thoughts and every night after Afghanistan he dreamed of the old doctor, his wise advice and clever tricks, and he promised _not to waste his life._

 

\---

 

The palladium poisoning wasn't something he'd recommend trying out. In his experience it wasn't all that fun. But, then again Tony Stark's opinion wasn't recommended so who was he to say.

He dated Pepper and watched his vibrant red words snake vertically down her Achilles tendon. _You complete me_ , it read. At the time he had been diving head first out of a plane and he had thought he'd said it sarcastically but when he glanced back up at Pepper her arms were thrown up in the air exasperatedly as she stared down at her heel, eyes wide.

They dated for a little over a year after that but once the Avengers business really began to crack down on Tony she had left him. Somehow it was all too much pressure on her. And she'd left him wordless, even though the last thing she'd said to him was that she loved him.

When he felt no tingle or burn- how the formation of words is described to feel- he knew she was either lying to him or lying to herself by stating something like that. He never mentioned it though, it would just make everything more uncomfortable than it needed to be. Plus she didn't know about his secret, or at least she never said anything about it if she had noticed. 

After Pepper he buried himself in work. Occasionally he'd get a call from Harley Keener, the sweet little sadist from back when Tony was taking down the Mandarin. Harley would say something about giving another kid at school a black eye with his potato gun and they'd both laugh and Tony would send him little, harmless gadgets. It was nice, but it happened less than once a month.

Steve, aka _the_ Captain America, was constantly reminding him to get equipment out faster, and while Tony knew the guy just wanted the best of the best for his team, he also wished Rogers would give him a moment to breathe.

The team was finally starting to become an actual team instead of just a group of people with a common goal when Ultron happened.

And suddenly the team was gone.

Jarvis was gone.

Rhodey was away on military business.

There was nowhere for him to turn.

However, instead of sulking, and crying and spiraling into a drunken haze- like his earlier habits suggested he would do- he did what Tony Stark does best. He fixed things. He started with Sokovia. He covered half the cost of the damages, focusing his efforts on civil constructions- roads, sidewalks and bridges- education, health, and sheltering the now homeless. With the spare money he had in the budget he decided to donate smalls shares to the buildings and businesses he had helped destroy.

No one thanked him for this, no one praised him, and he didn't expect or want anyone to, because this was just his responsibility and the right thing to do.

Next, he finished working on his clean energy act and distributed the blue prints globally, having his PR team say the plans were leaked so that no one would have a reason to say he was just doing something for another reward or more attention. He knew it would help people in third world countries the most, seeing as the materials that it required were actually quite basic and inexpensive.

He started a charity to help combat any cancer. He rebuilt the Maria Stark foundation from the ground up. He worked and worked and one day he received an email to his personal account from the compound. In short words it told Tony to stop fooling around and focus more on supplying the Avengers with the proper equipment they required to perform their best.

Tony thought that was bullshit, but he worked on their weapons and suits more than he'd like to admit because he couldn't bear to see them hurt in battle just because he was too petty and refused to give them what they needed to protect themselves. 

Almost all of the Avengers have his words, regardless of the fact that Tony has none of theirs.

Natasha's reads, _I know you're like a super spy and all, and you can totally protect yourself, and I totally respect that, but goddammit lady, please put on your seat belt. Your ninja skills can't protect you from a head on collision._ It was long, but it's just how Tony expresses his love, through thinly veiled attempts to guard his friends in the form of babbling.

Clint's was a bit shorter, but no less ridiculous; _You can't legitimately fly bird boy! Get the fuck down from there before you-!_ It abruptly cut off because Tony had to dive off the top floor of the Avengers tower in the Iron Man armor to catch the dumbass who had jumped off just to prove that Stark would catch him no matter how angry he was.

Thor's was simply, _I think lightning's cool,_ which Tony had whispered to him after Clint had yelled, "Lightning is one of the most useless powers! It's lame, dude!"

Bruce's was too long for Tony to actually remember but it was a rant about how Bruce needs to be more careful in the lab and not be so nonchalant about spilling flesh eating chemicals on himself just because the Hulk can't die.

Phil Coulson oddly enough had Tony's words, though it was just a humble _Ha! Nerd._

The only people on the Team who didn't have Stark's words were Vision, Sam and Steve, not including Wanda since she wasn't technically _, legally,_ on the team. Vision was incapable of receiving words so Tony literally couldn't give him any, Sam and him hadn't really had time to connect, and Steve and him were just on this whole different level of strange and complicated.

But that's just how things generally were with Tony, complicated.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have about a billion other ideas for this AU so expect more of this type of shiz


End file.
